


Awake

by kiranovember



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/M, alternate universe - Awake fusion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2014-05-22
Packaged: 2018-01-24 04:31:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1591787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiranovember/pseuds/kiranovember
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If only John knew which one was real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

After nearly beating Peter Arnt to death, John doesn't sleep again until he's dropped him off at his favorite Mexican prison; the one with the very obliging warden who will take anyone for the right price. He gets a cheap hotel room and crashes and wakes up in the morning next to Jessica.

She looks a little older than he remembers, as she did in the videos he watched at the house. There's noise from downstairs, children's voices, dishes clinking, flatware clattering, and he says, "What the hell?" Jessica leans in and kisses him, morning breath be dammned, and tells him the kids are making him breakfast in the hope that he'll take them out on the boat like he promised and not let himself get called into work.

It's a dream; it has to be a dream, so he gives himself over to it completely. His children, Emily, ten, Jason, nine, and Molly, seven. The sailboat, a twentysix-footer named "Second Chance." Jessica, warm and alive in the circle of his arms as they brace their feet against the opposite bench and cling to the tiller, the boat heeled over as they tack into the wind. It's a perfect day, complete with picnic lunch, and that night they make love the way he's dreamed about for years, slowly and passionately. They fall asleep spooned together his arms wrapped around her as though he's planning to hold on to her forever.

In the morning he wakes up in Mexico.


	2. Chapter 2

John drives back to New York City. He's not sure why. He could go to ground among the homeless in any large city and be invisible, but something calls to him and so north he goes. He drinks coffee all the way, travels over a thousand miles before he's forced to find a dark corner in a truck stop parking and get some sleep.

It's Monday morning and the kids run around humting for shoes and backpacks and completed homework assignments while Jessica makes lunches (his, too, because too much takeout has added inches to his waistline) and magically knows where everything is. He looks at himself while getting dressed and can't remember the last time he was as thin as his other self, then realizes he remembers his whole life. 

Leaving the Army for Jessica. The struggle with himself not to go back after 9/11. Their wedding. His childrens' births. Moving to New York and finally finding a job and a boss that were a good match for him. If this is a dream, shouldn't the details be hazier? Instead it's as crystal clear as his life as a CIA agent.

He wonders how long he can stay awake.


	3. Chapter 3

The answer was: not very long. While in the Army he had trained himself to go without sleep for days, but in this life he had let that all go. He didn't own a handgun, even, hadn't fired a weapon since he'd left. Hadn't stayed in shape, either. Just walking around the block was wearing him out and the summer night was too warm to help. Despite all the coffee he drank he dozed off on the third day and found himself back at the truckstop.

He'd dug up a buried cache while in Mexico but most of the money had gone to bribe the warden. What was left only kept him for a while. He moved to a cheaper hotel, then an SRO, and when he had to make a choice between buying whiskey and paying for his room, the whiskey won out. His goal each day was to drink until he passed out as early as possible in order to get back to what he thought of as his real life; and once there, to stay awake as long as possible. 

When school ended he found that they had booked beach house on Cape Cod for three weeks, and it was glorious. Playing in the water with the kids every day. Building ever larger sandcastles, until they began to look more like sand cities. Renting bikes to ride the trails in the National Seashore and along the Canal. Jessica seemed bemused by the wsy he threw himself into having fun. She asked him several times if he was sure he didn't need to call work. On their last night they put the kids to bed then took a blanket and a bottle of wine out the beach in front of their door. 

" Is everything okay, John? Nothing going on at work? Nothing you haven't told me?"

"What makes you ask?"

"I'm a little worried about you, to be honest. I mean it's great that you've been so ... present this year, don't get me wrong. Usually we lose you about halfway in; one call to the office and then you're on your laptop for hours every day saying, "Go play, kids, we'll do something fun later!" but you didn't call in once." She reached out to touch his face, run her fingertips under his eyes. "This insomnia of yours is what has me concerned. "What's going on with you?"

"Nothing, I promise." He folded his hand around hers, kissed it. "I think I just realized that that I've missed so much. I didn't want to do that this year." He leaned in and kissed her, and they ended up necking on the beach like teenagers. He hadn't meant to fall asleep but the wine made him drowsy.

He woke up in the homeless camp in the abandoned warehouse, on a stinking ancient mattress, empty whiskey bottle beside him.


	4. Chapter 4

The summer flies by; glorious in one life, miserable in the other. John makes a few changes in John Stracey's life: he joins a gym, starts running. Or at least walking. He can't believe he let himself get this out of shape. Not here, where he has something to live for, stay healthy for. The kids go back to school and he moans and groans about the cost of new uniforms, shoes, notebooks, and such but everyone knows he doesn't mean it. Emily wants a computer of her own and there is much discussion about laptop vs. tablet, the subject tabled until homework requirements make themselves known.

In John Reese's life nothing changes until one night, when riding on the subway, almost at the point of passing out, a group of punks come in to his car and their leader grabs his bottle of whiskey. Moments later they are all on the ground and Transit Authority cops are holding him for the NYPD. He can't be bothered to resist. He doesn't give a name, but he knows, when Carter takes the cup with his prints on it, that it will only be a matter of time before the CIA sends someone looking for him. Probably Mark. He will no doubt take it personally when he learns the plan to eliminate both Kara and him failed. The thought is almost enough to make him smile. He wonders, when Mark kills him, will he go to the other life permanently? That thought does make him smile, at least a little, until he sees the lawyer walk in and point to him. It's too soon to be anyone federal, so he's curious as to who is footing the bill. Curious enough to get in the car, anyway, and at least listen to Mr. Finch's proposal. Not curious enough to take him up on it, though. He takes the guards out with ease and as little effort as possible, just to make a point, and walks away, thinking that rich people can develop strange hobbies.

The police will almost certainly be looking for him once they run his prints, and maybe Anton and his friends, so it's time to change up his appearance. He doesn't want to spend whatever time he has left in jail, on trial, whatever. Sure enough, they run a sketch of him with beard and long hair while he finishes cleaning up. He changes the channel, settles down with the bottle. It isn't long before he's out.

John has gotten used to the whiplash of waking up next to Jessica. Helping to get the kids fed and off to school. Kissing her goodbye. He goes to his office, where papers go to multiply and emails stack up in his inbox like magic every day. He's good at his job but he can't quite believe he does it. When he's here, he remembers the decision to go back to school, finish his bachelor's, get his MBA. He knows he wanted something that would be as far from combat as he could get, he remembers all the jobs he had on the way here, and yet there's a disconnect: how the hell did he end up sitting at a desk, at a computer, all day? Taking clients to lunch, playing golf? The benefits of this life far outweigh the downside of a boring job so he'll take it, take it day after day after day. He thinks about looking for a new job, but has no idea what else he might be able to do that can support his family as comfortably as this job does. In the end, he stares out the window until it's time to go home.

The whiplash back is worse than usual. He's still a little drunk and well on his way to hungover and someone is screaming. Also, he's tied to the bed. In a different room than the one he passed out in. It's very disorienting. Still, that's what training is for, so you know what to do even when you're not thinking, and he breaks the mirror and cuts himself loose and breaks through the connecting door and finds... Mr. Finch. And a recording. Here, in this life, the other is hazy, fuzzy. Here, Jess's death is an open wound, still bleeding after four months. Here, he may be losing condition due to his lifestyle but he's plenty fast enough and strong enough to pin this guy to the wall for daring to mention her name. But oddly, Finch is not as scared as he should be, and hits the nail exactly on the head. All he wanted to do, originally, was protect people. Well, that and get the judge off his back, but he chose the Army not just because of his father, but because he thought he would be able to see the difference that he made. Instead his service had led him down a very dark path, with the lure of protecting his country dangling in front of him. Finch's lure is a little more concrete - to get there in time - and he decides that maybe this man is serious. Maybe John will be able to save some lives. Protect some people. At least for a while. Finch is convinced that this job will kill them both and John decides that it will probably be faster than drinking himself to death, and far more useful. At least until Mark shows up.

**Author's Note:**

> For a meme_of_interest prompt


End file.
